Sermon Transcript
So, true story. Sometime when I was in middle school, I wanted to bargain with God so that when I went fishing, uh, he would let me catch some fish. I, uh, I loved fishing, but many times— this might be your experience fishing as well— I wouldn’t catch anything. So I still loved going even if I didn’t catch anything, but I thought, what could I give God so that God would in turn give me some fish to catch? My middle school mind started working, and what it came up with was, ah, I know!
I will read my Bible every day for a week, and then God will owe me some fish. So I had my terms negotiated. I kept up my end of the deal, but it didn’t work out so well. God did not keep up his end of the deal. I didn’t catch any fish.
Now, I’m sure you have never done anything that silly because you are so much more theologically sound than that, right? I’m sure you’ve, for instance, never thought your team would win. If you sat on a certain spot on the couch, uh, or if you would stand in the kitchen during, during the entire 3rd quarter or something. I’m sure you’ve never said anything like, God, if you give me what I want, then I will XYZ for you, right? I’m sure you have never done anything like that.
I’m sure. But for the earliest times, since forever, Much of religion has been how to earn favor with God or the gods or karma or fate or whatever it is that’s out there. Every culture has had sacrifices, dances, rituals, good behavior, all of which were intended to get God on your side of things, to impress God enough so he would act in your favor. Or perhaps to do enough for him where he would then actually owe you for what you had done. And peoples everywhere have thought, hey, if we do these things, God will maybe make it rain on our field, give us victory over our enemies, allow us to have a child.
I do for you, God, now you do for me. Pay up. It’s really pretty, whether we want to admit it or not, pretty inherent in all of us. And for a large part, that’s what religion is. We do what we need to do in order to get God to give us what we want him to give us.
So into that mindset, Jesus tells a parable, and he kind of resets everyone’s thinking. He’s so good at this. He takes what you’re thinking, he completely flips it on its head, and then sends you off in an entirely different direction. So we’re in Matthew chapter 20 today, verses 1 through 16. They’ll be up on, up on the screen if you didn’t bring a Bible with you or don’t have a phone.
If you don’t want to look at the screen, there’s a Bible in the pew in front of you. You can use that as well. Matthew 20:1-16. Jesus says, For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Early in the morning probably would have been before sunrise.
After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the 3rd hour, that would probably be 9 AM, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And to them he said, you go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will pay you. So they went. Going out again about the 6th hour, probably noon, and the 9th hour, probably 3 PM, he did the same.
And the 11th hour, maybe 5 PM, he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, go to the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last up to the first.
And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius, the full day’s wage, even though they’d really only worked an hour. Now, when those who were hired first came, the ones who were hired before sunrise, probably, they thought, hey, we will receive more. But each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, these last people, they only worked an hour, and you’ve made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day in the scorching heat. But he replied to one of them, friend, I have done you no wrong.
Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give the last worker as I gave to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me, or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last.
Now, we may not work in vineyards very often, But we understand what it feels like to work for God and not get rewarded what we think we deserve, especially when we see someone else doing far less than us and them getting what we think we deserve. So some examples, see if you recognize any of these. Um, God, I followed all your rules. I’m nice to people. I don’t steal things.
I rarely lie. Okay, it happens sometimes. I don’t want to lie in the middle of saying all these things. But I go to church. I tithe.
So, so why don’t I have the job that I want? Why don’t you open a door for me in that company that I want to work for? Or this would be worse, right? We’re unemployed and we think, God, why don’t I have a job at all? Especially if we see someone who has the job, someone who has done almost nothing, right, and has the job that we want.
Oh, that’s awful if that happens, right? We think, you got to be kidding me. This guy, this guy gets the job and I don’t? What in the world? Okay, number one, before we even start with all the God stuff, he’s not qualified for the job.
So let’s just start right there. So on professional merits alone, this is absurd. But then God— and we tend to go here, don’t we? We say, God, he doesn’t care about you at all. He’s not a religious person.
He’s mean to other people. He lies to get ahead. How could you let him get the job? Or some other examples: God, I’ve tried to be healthy my whole life. I didn’t smoke or drink or use drugs.
I was eating kale when everyone else thought it was only salad bar decoration. Why am I sick?
Why do I have cancer? Why does that guy who smoked for 40 years get to live until he’s 80, and I might not make it till I’m 65? What’s that about? Or, God, I had my kids in church every time the door was open. We prayed together every day.
I had them memorize scripture. They didn’t see any hypocrisy in my life at all, and now their lives are running off the rails. They’re into just all kind of bad stuff. Don’t I deserve to have good kids after how hard we tried to get them to you? I did my part, God.
Now you owe me.
Or, God, I kept your sexual purity standards when I was single. Okay? I did it. I did what you said. No one else did it.
I did it. Everybody else laughed at me. I still did it. Now I deserve a good marriage. I followed you even when it was hard, now pay up.
Or maybe, why does that person get to have a good marriage and I don’t? Why are we seemingly paid different things? There’s a million other ones. Don’t I deserve to get into that school? Don’t I deserve to live in that house?
Don’t I deserve to have a baby? Don’t I deserve to be able to take the kind of vacation that I want? Don’t I deserve for my company to succeed? After all I’ve done for you, God, how could you let my competitor gain market share?
Anytime we’re jealous of what someone else has, part of us must be thinking, right, this has to be going on inside, we think, I deserve that. I deserve that at least as much as that person deserves that. I probably deserve that more than that person deserves that. Why didn’t God or the universe or karma or whatever’s out there? Why, why didn’t I get it?
We may even think, God, if you aren’t going to give me what I want, then why am I following you at all? Why am I out here in the vineyard all day long?
All too often we can feel like the laborers who were hired first. We can feel like God is shorting us, like he owes us for good behavior and he’s not paying us what we deserve.
But Jesus shows us in this parable God’s payment system is not merit-based, it’s grace-based.
Now whether you like a grace-based system or not, is all about how much you think you have worked. If you are the guy who only worked for 1 hour, you were hired in the 11th hour, but you get paid for the whole day, you’re loving this grace-based system. You’re going to take your money and you’re just going to sing down the street all the way home, right? But if you’re the guy who started at the beginning of the day, maybe before the sun came up, and you got paid the same as the guy who worked only an hour, this grace thing would just be the worst. You’re going to grumble like they did in verse 11.
You wouldn’t want anyone to get paid on grace. You’d want people to be paid based on what they earned. So we’ll ask the question now, but then we’ll just put a pin in it and come back to it. Later. Okay, which worker do you think that you are?
Are you the one who has worked extensively for God, either a long time or with big sacrifices? You’re, you’re a 3rd hour worker or a pre-3rd hour worker? Or are you the worker who really hasn’t done very much for God at all? Who really hasn’t given up that much for God? The 11th-hour worker who only worked 1 hour?
Which one do you think that you are? And remember, your answer to that question will probably determine whether you like the grace-based system or not. If you think you’ve worked little, you’ll love God’s reward. If you think you’ve worked a lot, you’ll be upset you aren’t getting more. You’ll be grumbling like they were in the parable.
So this could be a little self-test for you as you’re trying to answer the question. If you are exceedingly happy with what God has given you in your life, you may think you really haven’t done that much for God, at least in proportion to what he has given you. But if you’re grumbling, or if you think you’re about even with what you deserve, you may think you’ve done a bunch for God. So start to mull that over in your mind, but we aren’t gonna answer that question right now. We’re just putting a pin in it and putting it up here for later.
Meanwhile, let’s talk about Jesus’ disciples in the context of when Jesus told this parable. Peter, just before Jesus told this parable, Peter had had a small freakout moment. And he wondered how he and the rest of the disciples would be rewarded for following Jesus. He said to Jesus— this is Matthew 19:27, right before this parable— he said to Jesus, Jesus, we have left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us?
What are we going to get for following you, Jesus? Now, uh, his freakout was really pretty understandable because just before Peter’s question, backing up a little further, Jesus had told another man that that man was excluded from any kind of reward from Jesus. And that’s when Peter flips his lid. What about us, Jesus? Maybe it had never really crossed his mind before that there could be a category of people that are excluded, and he might have been thinking, if some people are excluded, is that us?
You can hear him thinking, Jesus, we’ve worked long and hard. We’ve sacrificed much. We’ve worked way more than other people. Others haven’t done nearly as much as we have. We gave up everything for you, Jesus.
What are we gonna get?
So Jesus answers him. Jesus really gives Peter 2 answers. He gives Peter a direct answer first. And then he tells Peter a parable. The direct answer reassures Peter, elevates Peter.
The parable does something else. Jesus says in Matthew 19:28, this is the direct answer. He says, Peter, truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive 100 times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.
That was the direct answer And it’s what Peter wanted to hear. I would assume he’d go, ha, okay, good. I’m going to get what I deserve, he probably thought. He’s relieved. I’m sure he’s relieved.
His massive sacrifice has not gone unnoticed, and he will be rewarded for following Jesus. But just as his mind is able to kind of start to settle, from this freakout moment, Jesus hits him with the second answer. This parable where the workers who think they have given the most and sacrificed the most are ultimately pretty disappointed, and the ones who really haven’t done much at all get a big reward. So timeout now, small Bible lesson here. You might be asking, how do we know this parable that Jesus tells directly fits into what Peter asked?
How do we know that this parable was really a further explanation to the question that Peter asked? And the answer is, we know these events happened back to back because they both end with the same little line: many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. Sometimes this is true. This may have been what you were thinking when you’re reading the accounts in Jesus’ life. One of his biographies of the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
Sometimes when you’re reading one of those, just because 2 stories back up to each other right next to each other, or 2 verses back up right next to each other like this, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they happened right after one another. It could be like you’re watching a play and characters are going along having dialogue, but then the scene ends, the stage goes dark, people come out and they change the set before the next line of dialogue happens. And even though this line of dialogue came immediately after the preceding line of dialogue, you’re aware, oh, the story has kind of jumped to a different place because the screen— or the stage went dark and the scene changed and people came out and moved the scenery around. This event and this event, they’re related by, like, a larger plot, but they’re not directly connected to one another. That can happen in the Bible, especially in one of Jesus’ biographies, but that is not the case here.
We know Jesus told this parable immediately after Peter’s freakout moment because of that same little line at the end, the last will be first, the first will be last. Anytime you see a repeating of the same line at the end of multiple stories, you know, oh, oh, Okay, well, these events are directly connected to one another. That’s just a method Jesus’ biographers used to kind of clue you into what’s happening in the narrative. So the flow of events, let’s put this timeline all together now. Peter hears someone isn’t going to get any reward from Jesus, and he goes a little nuts wondering, What will I get?
Because I have worked long and hard and given up a lot for Jesus. Jesus replies, calm down there, buddy. You and the rest of the disciples are going to sit on thrones in the kingdom. You’re going to get a lot. Whew, Peter must have thought.
But then Jesus adds this little twist. Through a parable, he tells Peter, but the ones who feel like they get a lot, that’s you, Peter, they really haven’t done anything. They are like workers who get hired right at the end of the day. They are 11th-hour workers, like starting at 5:00 PM for us. They work only 1 hour, but get paid for the whole day.
That’s you, Peter. Not saying you did nothing, okay? 11th-hour workers did something. They had a little bit of effort in there, just almost nothing. That’s who you are, Peter.
And then the scene ends, probably. But you have to wonder, what was Peter’s follow-up to that? If I were him, I’d be asking, wait a minute, Jesus, you just said I was gonna get a lot. I, I’m going to sit on a throne over one of the tribes of Israel. That’s what you said.
Yes, that’s what I said, Peter. That certainly feels like a gigantic reward, Jesus. That seems like you are paying me a lot. In fact, you just used the term hundredfold. That was back in verse 29.
The dude over there writing this down didn’t write down verse 29, but later on when they add verses into things that you said, that’ll be verse 29. In verse 29, which they’ll say in the future, you You said I’d get back 100 times the amount that I put in. Yes, that’s what I said, Peter. And now you’re saying that people like me who will be richly rewarded or feel really, really richly rewarded in proportion to their work, that we really haven’t done much of anything at all except for a little bit. Yes, that’s right, Peter.
That me, Peter, who left everything to follow you really hasn’t done that much.
Exactly.
Jesus reassured him, elevated him, and then humbled him.
Let’s think about how Jesus could say to Peter, to Peter of all people, that Peter is comparable to the worker hired in the 11th hour. But got paid for all day.
If you don’t know Peter’s life story, here’s a short summary. He was working as a fisherman one day, and Jesus came up to him and said, hey, why don’t you quit the fisherman stuff and come hang out with me? Peter did not apply for the position. He didn’t beat out other applicants. He had no qualifications that would earn him the position.
We find out later that he was unschooled and ordinary. Jesus, just out of sheer grace, chose Peter. We start to find out just how magnificently underqualified Peter was during the next 3 years while he walks around with Jesus. He’s constantly saying and doing the wrong thing. He doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about most of the time.
One time he cuts off a dude’s ear and Jesus has to put it back on. Jesus actually calls him Satan at another point. Doesn’t get much more unqualified than that. How’d the interview go? Well, the recruiter called me Satan, uh, so not great.
Um, at every turn, he’s just not in line with what Jesus is doing. Then one time, the one time he says something really great, he said some good things along the way, but the one time he says something really great in the 3 years, Jesus looks at him and says, blessed are you, for that didn’t come from you, but from my Father in heaven. So the one amazing thing he does in 3 years, Jesus looks at him and says, awesome, uh, wasn’t you. Then after Jesus gets arrested, Peter denies that he’s ever known him, so not only does he say and do wrong things, but now he’s unfaithful as well. Jesus forgives him for that, restores him to a place of leadership.
That’s Peter’s life. You may want to say or argue, yeah, but, but after all that, when Jesus went back to heaven, Peter started the church, right? He did all kind of amazing things for God. Yeah, sure, that’s true. But let’s think about that.
Jesus specifically told him, Peter, after— when he was about to go back to heaven, he’s like, Peter, Don’t do anything until the Holy Spirit gets here. I don’t want you out there untethered trying to do things on your own. Okay, please, just wait till the Holy Spirit gets here. So all the preaching, all the healing that Peter is able to do later on in life, again, that really wasn’t him. It was God working through him.
Probably, if Peter’s anything like us, God working in spite of him. His whole career, all his work for Jesus was really just Jesus dragging him along, propping him up, forgiving him, restoring him. And now, isn’t this bizarre? Peter’s going to get rewarded for it. He will sit on a throne for all the work he’s done.
Peter is an 11th-hour worker who got paid 100 times what he put in.
Back to us. If Peter is an 11th-hour worker who really hasn’t done much of anything for Jesus— not nothing, he got 1 hour of work in there— do you think you’re comparable to the laborer who has been working in the vineyard all day long? If Peter barely worked, do you think you’ve worked long and hard and sacrificed much?
I know it feels like it when we are struggling to follow what God says to do, when God says don’t but we really want to anyway, when we strive and endure and fight Because just because we’re trying to follow God, it feels like we’ve been working by the sweat of our brow all day long, like we’ve been out in that vineyard for forever and sacrificed a lot. But let’s look at that. The accurate picture of our faith isn’t God sets out some rules for what to do and what not to do, and then he sits back and just kind of watches to see if we can jump over the bar or not, deciding whether to bless us if we jump over the bar. Jump over the bar, here’s your treat. Don’t jump over the bar, no treat.
That’s not it. That’s not how it works. That’s many other religions. That’s not Christianity. The Christian faith is what happened to Peter.
We were floundering around in darkness, in evil, in destructive behaviors. God forgave us. He continues to forgive us. He reaches into our train wreck of a life, pulls us up out of the mud, enables us to walk, and keeps giving us motivation to continue walking in the light. He saves us from ourselves.
He saves us from hurting ourselves in the darkness. If we’re doing the right thing, to whatever extent that’s happening, if we’re living whatever percentage of a holy life that we’re living, That is a gift that he gives us.
Philippians 2:12-13 says it like this: Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So yes, there is some work on our part, right? The 11th-hour workers did something. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. There is a real effort that happened.
Happens. But really what’s going on here is God is working in us. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you. And what is it that he’s working in us? It’s our salvation, which means our rescue, which means our help walking in the light, living a life of holiness and goodness is God continuing to rescue us.
It does not put God into our debt. It’s not as if when we do good things we’re storing up credit in heaven that we can use later on to bargain with God. God does not owe us more because we’ve been good. It’s actually the opposite. If we’ve been good, It means we’re actually more in debt to God.
The more we walk in the light, the more we owe God.
Really for 2 reasons. Because it was him working in us to start with, right? So we can’t really claim the credit for it in the first place. We can’t say, God, you owe me for that, because he’s the one who did it. The second reason we would owe God more is the work that he did in us, the holiness that he made happen within us is unmerited favor to us.
So we can’t really owe him anything. Like when I was in middle school and I read my Bible every day for a week, I can’t turn to God and say, well, you really owe me now, right? God had provided me access to the very words of life that added richness and fullness to my life. That rooted me more into eternal joy. That was unmerited favor that God showed me.
It would be absurd for me to turn and say to him, you know, God, you really owe me a fish for that favor that you just did me. It doesn’t work that way. If you kept God’s purity standards while you were dating, you can’t turn to God and say, well, you really owe me for that. First of all, it was him working in you to accomplish it in the first place, so it’s his effort more than it’s your effort, so he can’t owe you. But then secondly, really what God did was spare you from the emotional baggage that you would have had had you not listened to him.
So you can’t say, God, thank you for rescuing— for— or, God, you rescued me from that emotional baggage, now you really owe me. That doesn’t make any sense. If you’re struggling to forgive someone, you know God says, hey, forgive as I forgave you, and you’re like, okay, I’m gonna try to do this, and you try and you struggle and you falter in that, but eventually something happens, you’re able to forgive someone, you can’t look to God then and say, well, now you really owe me big. Because again, God is the one who worked in you to make that happen, that enabled you to do that. And secondly, what God’s really doing was spared you from bitterness.
He’s keeping you from the inside of your soul rotting out. So you can’t say, God, you rescued me from bitterness. Well, now you really owe me big.
If we’re the captain of a ship and we run our ship into an iceberg and we’re drowning in the ocean, but the Coast Guard helicopter shows up and pulls us out of the frigid waters, wraps a pre-warmed blanket around us, gives us a tasty hot beverage, we don’t look at the Coast Guard and say, wow, Coast Guard, you really owe me big. You’re welcome.
It’s the opposite.
We owe the Coast Guard. We owe them big if they rescued us. That’s how Jesus can look at Peter and say, buddy, you really haven’t done much.
But isn’t this just the most mind-blowing thing then? Jesus rewards Peter for what Jesus has done. Peter’s going to get to sit on a throne in the kingdom for what God did through him. It would be like the Coast Guard throwing you a parade because they rescued you. Imagine what you’d be thinking as you sat on the float of honor rolling down the street with ticker tape falling from the sky and everyone cheering for you because you were rescued by the Coast Guard.
You’d think, I really didn’t do anything to deserve this at all. You really should be cheering for the Coast Guard. Exactly.
You are an 11th-hour worker. If there’s any hero in the story, it’s the owner of the vineyard who paid way too much to this worker. That’s what Jesus wants Peter to understand. That’s what Jesus wants us to understand. All of us who have surrendered to Christ, all of us who belong to him, All of us who are included in his kingdom.
If you’re worried if that’s you, if you’re like, well, am I included in his kingdom? Who was this excluded person that was mentioned earlier? Am I excluded? Well, I’d say listen to last week’s message. That may be helpful figuring out, be included, if you’re included.
But I would just say, we are included if we say yes to Jesus’ invitation. We are included when we say, I need rescue. We are included when we say, Jesus, I need forgiveness.
When we are included, we are all 11th-hour workers. All of us are 11th-hour workers. We’ve been scooped up by God, forgiven, Set on a path of increasing goodness and fullness in life, and at the end, richly rewarded for what God did in us.
We never have room to say, I deserve more. We can only say, thank you.
Let’s pray together. Father, thank you for scooping us up and rescuing us. Father, thank you for paying us way, way more than we deserve. Thank you for having mercy on us as 11th-hour workers, Lord. Give us the grace to see ourselves as that.
Help us to praise and thank you every day for what you continue to do in our lives. We ask those things in Jesus’ name.
